Open Educational Resources (OER) by Material Type : Introduction

Open Educational Resources

Open educational resources are teaching, learning, and research resources that are created with the intention of being freely available to users anywhere. They may include, but are not limited to, textbooks, readings, multi-media files, software, assessment tools, and even entire courses. Most are covered by licenses that allow for using, re-mixing, and sharing.

This page provides links to just a few of the many tools available to educators and students.

Creative Commons
A California based organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share through their release of copyright licenses available free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

David Wiley
Co-Founder and Chief Academic Officer of Lumen Learning, an organization dedicated to increasing student success and improving the affordability of education through the adoption of open educational resources.

SPARK
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication.

The 5 R's of Openness

RETAIN
the right to make, own, and control copies of the content

REUSE
the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)

REVISE
the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)

REMIX
the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)

REDISTRIBUTE
the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)